Some Wisconsin lawmakers double as landlords — and have passed laws that undermine renters' rights

A series of sweeping laws promoting the interests of landlords at the expense of renters, local governments and even public safety have been pushed through the state Capitol since 2011 by a group of lawmakers who moonlight as landlords.

The measures speed up the eviction process, eliminate some tenant legal defenses, limit the power of cities to police landlords and cap fees tied to building code violations. They also allow landlords to toss renters' belongings on the curb immediately after an eviction, instead of placing the property in storage.

Call it the Landlords' Legislature.

In all, about one out of five of state lawmakers who voted on these bills owns or manages rental properties, the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel found in its review. At least five lawmakers who double as landlords sponsored the various measures, each of which passed on mostly party-line votes.

There are other examples of lawmakers voting on measures that affect their income, such as physicians and nurses voting on medical matters. But the landlord-driven bills stand out for the volume, quick passage and the fact some came in direct response to specific problems faced by the lawmaker landlords.

"It's obvious they're trying to help their own financial interests rather than the people of the state," said Richard Painter, the former chief ethics lawyer for President George W. Bush's administration who last year ran for U.S. Senate in Minnesota as a Democrat. "This is the kind of thing that just makes the Legislature look bad."

Former Republican state Sen. Frank Lasee, who owned four rental properties while serving in the Legislature, was the lead Senate sponsor on all five measures. State Sen. Duey Stroebel, R-Saukville, who has ties to about a dozen rental properties, sponsored three of the bills.

Two other lawmakers are property managers, including state Rep. Samantha Kerkman, R-Salem, who manages Vos' Whitewater rentals.

Lasee of De Pere acknowledged he also sponsored one measure in response to an issue his mother was having with a tenant.

"People tend to legislate in areas that they understand the best," he said.

Republican wave washes in changes

Since 2013, Vos has been the Assembly's gatekeeper, making him the one person who can decide which bills advance to the floor for a vote.

In an interview in his Capitol office, the Rochester Republican said there was no conflict of interest in his support for bills benefiting landlords, including his own property rental company.

"The idea of having a citizen legislature where people have experience is what everybody says they want, right?" said Vos, who had held elective office since 1994 and owns an array of businesses. "They don't want professional politicians."

Wisconsin landlord-tenant law had changed little for years before the 2010 election.

The Republican wave that swept the party into total control in Madison sparked a series of pro-business initiatives such as scaling back environmental rules; making Wisconsin a "right to work state" and overhauling regulations on various industries.

The first landlord bill, which limited the powers of municipalities in policing the rental industry, was sponsored by Vos and Lasee in May 2011.

The bill barred local governments from limiting background searches of prospective tenants or preventing landlords from renting out units while they were still occupied, two issues of importance to college-town property managers.

Combined, Republican lawmakers have made at least 100 changes to landlord-tenant law — most of which Vos acknowledged favored landlords.

"As a conservative, I fundamentally believe in the idea of private property rights," he said.

The opinion, requested by Vos, was dated May 8, 2019, almost eight years to the day after he was lead Assembly sponsor of the first landlord bill. He requested the legal opinion after the Journal Sentinel began inquiring about the law changes.

The speaker's staff argued that a 2011 legal opinion about a Vos-sponsored bill involving legal fees had cleared him of any conflict of interest when he ushered the landlord bills through the Legislature.

But that opinion, from the state's ethics board, focused on a legal dispute involving Vos and a former tenant. It said it was OK for Vos to sponsor legislation that limited attorney fees the losing side has to pay to the winner's lawyer.

"That opinion was reconfirmed verbally over the years," Kit Beyer, a Vos aide, wrote in an email in response to Journal Sentinel questions. "We requested the May 8th opinion after learning you were doing this story in order to provide you with a more recent one in writing."

A lawsuit, then a law

The case that prompted the ethics opinion illustrates how Vos' work as a lawmaker has become intertwined with his rental business.

His properties, mostly located in Whitewater, appear to be typical college-student housing.

Since 2012, the City of Whitewater has fined Vos and his companies $11,866 for a variety of minor infractions, such as not mowing the lawn, not shoveling snow and not cleaning junk from the property, city records show. The fines for the nearly 300 violations ranged from $25 to $300 each.

Vos companies also have dealt with more serious problems.

When five student renters moved out of a house saying they had lost electricity at least two dozen times during the summer of 2010, a Vos company sued them for breach of contract. One student, who had paid her rent in advance, filed a countersuit demanding a refund.

Vos' company settled the case in October 2011 by agreeing to pay the tenant $2,175, court records show.

During an ensuing fight over the legal fees, the tenant's lawyer, Brian Schuk, was stunned to learn that Vos was sponsoring legislation that effectively capped legal fees at three times the amount awarded in compensatory damages.

This would have meant a limit of about $7,000 in the case. Legal fees were actually more than $20,000, Schuk said at the time.

The bill was moving through the Legislature at breakneck speed. It went from introduction to the governor's desk in less than one month.

"It did seem like there was a rush," Schuk said.

At the time, public discussion about the bill largely focused on limiting court-ordered fees collected by attorneys who sue car makers in lemon law cases.

After it was disclosed that the bill could also benefit Vos personally in the landlord-tenant lawsuit, Vos sought the ethics opinion.

"They know this bill is going to pass and they know the gravy train is going to end," Vos told the Journal Sentinel at the time.

Schuk said the whole matter was nerve-wracking.

"I knew where my case was at, and I knew who the other side was, and I knew this law was coming out, so it was a trifecta of issues — I was concerned about all of them," Schuk said. "It's rare that you’re up against somebody who's in the Legislature."

Schuk argued in court that the new law should not be applied retroactively. In the end, Vos' company paid the tenant's legal fees of about $20,000, court records show.

"Did I lose?" Vos asked. "I don't even remember that."

Officials say laws undercut local efforts

Vos and officials from landlord groups argue the changes they've made to state law ensure uniformity in the state's 72 counties. Local officials say the GOP actions limited how they run their own cities.

The changes prompted some cities, including Milwaukee, to drop programs that targeted neighborhoods, such as college housing or areas with older houses, for increased inspections.

"I call it the Bad Landlord Protection Act," said Milwaukee Mayor Tom Barrett, saying the bills "create a business model where it is cheaper to violate the law" than to follow it.

Barrett said it is more efficient for unscrupulous landlords to not repair some code violations and simply pay the reinspection fees, which are now capped by state law. What's more, it can take years for those fees to catch up with the cost of a major repair.

The city can take a landlord to court for failing to make the repairs, though collecting Municipal Court fines can be a difficult task.

The city lost $3 million to $4 million from 2014 through 2017 as a result of the new state laws, officials said. The bulk of the drop — $2.58 million — was caused by the new limits on fees charged when an inspector finds a violation and has to return to reinspect the property.

Firefighters joined the legislative fray in an effort to douse a GOP-pushed bill that loosened requirements for sprinkler systems in apartment buildings. The law voided ordinances that mandated sprinklers in buildings with fewer than 20 units.

"They'd sprinkle everybody's home if they could," Lasee said in an interview. "Truly that is what they want."

“The state did away with those rules and said, ‘No, no, no, no. Madison, Milwaukee, you can't have that,’ ” Kozlowski said.

Shifting the balance of power

Nearly a dozen Democrats who have served in the Legislature since 2011 are also landlords, though they routinely voted against the bills.

The three largest Democratic landlords are state Rep. Gary Hebl of Sun Prairie, who listed more than a dozen properties owned by him or family members on his 2017 ethics report; Milwaukee Sen. Lena Taylor, who listed five; and Sen. Fred Risser of Madison, who listed three.

"I have a couple of rental properties of my own and I think that the bills that were promoted were way too lopsided in favor of the landlords," Risser said. "I think they were unfair."

Landlords and tenant advocates agree that the changes fundamentally shifted the balance of power between landlords and tenants.

"This new law will benefit landlords and 'good' tenants. 'Bad' tenants &mldr; will not like this new law," Tristan Pettit, a Milwaukee landlord lawyer wrote in a 2013 blog post.

Peter Koneazny, litigation director at the Legal Aid Society of Milwaukee, said in a May interview that it's not that simple.

"It’s not always easy to say who’s a good tenant or a bad tenant, and also there’s bad landlords as well as good landlords," Koneazny said.

Koneazny added that "the number and the pettiness of some of these things certainly was a surprise. Any landlord who had a gripe about something could get the law changed in some way to address that gripe."

That's exactly what Lasee tried to do.

The former senator said his then-72-year-old mother had long rented out an upstairs apartment with no problems. Then the tenant's "no good son" also moved in and "things started to go downhill," he said.

Lasee said his mother evicted the woman and her son, but "got stuck with a $500 water bill."

Today, thanks to a 2013 Lasee-sponsored law, a lien on behalf of the landlord can be placed against tenants who leave without paying the water bill. Unlike the major landlord bills, this measure passed with the help of four Democrats.

"Wisconsin was a very bad-tenant forgiving state," said Lasee.

Power shifts to landlords

Some of the changes appear to be aimed at the Eviction Defense Project — which provides free lawyers to Milwaukee County tenants facing eviction, said Koneazny, who works with the project.

A new law requiring lawyers who do free work for a legal clinic to disclose information about themselves has made some lawyers hesitant to volunteer.

Other new state mandates eliminated some defenses and tactics used by Eviction Defense Project lawyers to prevent or slow down evictions. Tenants can no longer have an eviction suit dismissed because the landlord listed the wrong amount of rent owed in court filings.

The changes were "created solely to eliminate what had been a viable legal defense for tenants," said Raphael Ramos, director of the Eviction Defense Project, which launched in December 2016.

Pettit argued that some tenant lawyers were taking advantage of the old laws by using various strategies to drag out the eviction process.

"I want to be honest with you, but I also don't want to bad-mouth tenant advocates, but tenant advocates were taking advantage of that," he said.

Pettit is a former president of the Apartment Association of Southeastern Wisconsin, a trade group that helped push for most of the bills. He noted full control by Republicans opened the door for landlords seeking changes to state law.

"It all depends on who's in Madison, what can be done," he said.

Records show lawmakers were not flooded with campaign contributions connected to the bills, but lobbyists on both sides flocked to the Capitol.

The statewide political action committee for landlord trade groups gave $10,450 to Republican candidates and campaign committees — about 10 times the amount they gave to Democrats.

Opponents included Milwaukee, Madison and various nonprofits that advocate for low-income people and domestic violence victims. A measure that speeds up evictions if a landlord suspects criminal activity could result in domestic violence victims becoming homeless along with their abusers, advocates warn.

The state-imposed limits on inspections have irked Wisconsin mayors in cities where some neighborhoods, particularly those housing college students or low-income tenants, used to be targeted for inspections.

"Tenants don't want to call and complain and risk eviction or rent increases or other problems," said Oshkosh Mayor Lori Palmeri.

While Milwaukee axed its neighborhood inspection program, Oshkosh is still trying to retain aspects of its program. The city twice scaled back its inspection program in the wake of the new laws and a lawsuit by a local landlord association.

"It's been kind of a tennis match," Palmeri said. "Actually, a hockey match."

Lasee said some cities see the inspection fees as a revenue generator. Vos argued cities can still do the neighborhood inspections, though they must follow stricter criteria set by the state.

Under the 2018 changes, the targeted neighborhood inspection programs can only be done if an area includes blight, a high number of code violations, an increased number of homes being converted to rental units or plummeting property values. Each individual tenant must consent to the inspection.

As it is, Vos said, inspectors unfairly focus on rental properties.

"If you're in Whitewater and you have one house that has a car on blocks that's owned by the people who live in it. And the house next door is a rental where they don't mow the lawn every other day. Which one should (inspectors) look at?" Vos asked. "Under the way that many of these college towns were choosing to enforce it, they were just going after landlords and not the townies, the residents.

"Well, that's not fair. It should be everybody."

Kevin Crowe of the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel staff contributed to this report

Cary Spivak is an investigative reporter for the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel who focuses on white-collar crime, gambling and business-related matters. His Landlord Games investigation into slumlords who don't pay their fines and city officials who let them get away with it won a first-place investigative award from the Society of American Business Editors and Writers. Spivak, who began work at the Milwaukee Sentinel in 1987, has won numerous other state and national awards.

Mary Spicuzza is an investigative reporter focused on chasing down tips from readers to bring to light abuses of power, incompetence, scams, corruption and waste of taxpayer dollars. She has a background in government coverage, both at the local level and in Madison where she was part of a Wisconsin State Journal team that was a Pulitzer Prize finalist for breaking news coverage of then-Gov. Scott Walker's 2011 move to sharply limit union powers. Among other honors, she won an Investigative Reporters and Editors award for her PBS FRONTLINE documentary about deaths at the U.S.-Mexico border. Born and raised in Milwaukee, she has a master's degree in journalism from the University of California at Berkeley.